Elan Element Skis + ELW 9.0 Bindings - Women's 2019

All-mountain skis are designed to handle anything you throw at them including powder, ice, groomers, steeps, heavy snow, and everything in between, but they aren’t necessarily a master of any one terrain. If you’re only going to own one ski to do it all, this is what you want. All-mountain skis generally have what we call mid-fat waists that range from 80-110 mm.

Whether you’re new to the sport or working on linking smooth turns, you fall into this ability level. Typical beginner skis and snowboards are usually built with softer materials, narrower widths, and feature cap construction for an easy to turn, forgiving ride. Beginner-intermediate boots and bindings are also built for ease of use and progression, featuring softer flexes and in the case of ski bindings, quick and safe release from the ski in case of a fall.

Rocker (also called reverse-camber) is just as it sounds – camber turned upside down. Rocker skis have a side profile with a smooth downward curvature and a contact point at the middle of the ski. Rocker skis excel in deep powder. This profile provides the skis with less tip and tail hang up to prevent from catching edges and allows the skis to initiate turns extremely quickly. This profile doesn’t perform as well in icy conditions or on harder snow but if you spend lots of time in deep, untracked snow and like a more playful ski, Rocker is a great choice.

This is your traditional tail, designed to have edge contact all the way through the tail, and only designed for skiing forward. This is also preferred for alpine touring, as you can stick the tails of your skis in the snow.